By Rev. Russell Daye
St. Andrew's United Church, Halifax

Dissolving the Church

1Kings 8:1-14

Our reading from 1Kings this morning describes the inauguration of institutionalized religion in ancient Israel. It is a moment of great empowerment for the people of Israel, their priests (especially), and their King. Remember, this is a people that lived as slaves in Egypt, that wandered for generations in the desert, that fought a brutal war to wrestle Palestine from the nations inhabiting it, and then spent centuries warding off attacks from neighbours, struggling to keep its religion pure, and suffering from various forms of weak governance.

Now there is a strong King, who inherited the throne from his strong father, David. Now riches pour into Israel, instead of pouring out of it. Now it is the surrounding nations that fear the sword of Israel. Centuries of chaos have given way to a time of peace, order, and good governance.

For ages the Israelites were a people of tents, who worshipped in tents. No longer. Today they move the Ark from the tent into the Temple. Today their God has a strong house. Today they establish a religious centre from which Grace will pour out over the land. The thousands who gathered that day on the dusty slope of mount Zion witnessed a time of chaos giving way to a time of order.

Eight hundred or so people who gathered among the desert hills of the Okanagan earlier this month witnessed the exact opposite. The commissioners and others who journeyed to General Council 40 of the United Church of Canada witnessed a church moving from order to chaos, from temple to tents.

Not that the meeting itself was chaotic. It was mostly orderly, well run, and marked by spirited worship and wonderful moments of grace. In fact, there were two general councils - or perhaps it's better to say that there were two churches meeting in council. The two churches were intertwined like strands of DNA, dancing with each other, each taking the lead for a while and then giving way to the other.

One partner in the dance was the United Church we have come to know over the last 85 years: an institutional church that has served our nation well, governed itself reasonably well in congregations, and church courts, has sent thousands into mission overseas and to the needy at home, has offered strong, comforting, recognizable worship, and has cared for millions - true to them from cradle to grave. This is temple church.

The other partner in the dance was more irregular and volatile in its movements, darting in and out of sight, harder to see but at least as strong in its presence. At this moment of history, it is a church more of deconstruction than of construction. It is guerrilla church, church as solvent. When you think you have it in your sights, it packs up and runs out of view. This is tent church.

At General Council 40, tent church was especially apparent in our worship. It came into view as we borrowed symbols from non-Christian traditions: prayer flags from Tibetan Buddhism; prayers to the four directions from our aboriginal elders; heartbreaking drama from the theatre of the oppressed.

Tent church was given voice by the powerful presence of youth, as well as 'former youth,' who joined their way of living in work-as-play and play-as-work. This voice came very close to electing a 33-year-old woman as moderator.

Tent church was given face and heart by the growing leadership of the non-majority church - aboriginals, francophones, Asian and African Canadians, the LGBT community. This leadership is shown in a formal way by new branches and units of the church structure, but more importantly by the drawing of these hearts into our spiritual centre. We have gone from not listening to these hearts, to listening to them with paternalistic patience, to listening to them with hunger for their wisdom and their trial-tested strength.

I came away with an enduring image of tent church imprinted on my mind's eye: a ten-year-old Asian girl who darted in and out of our court, on and off of our stage throughout the week. She gifted us with singing and acting, with gentle words and uncanny smiles, with grace and confidence.

Temple church showed up mostly as we attended to our business: our motions, and resolutions, and discussion of reports. Temple church proved itself to be faithful and serious about its duties but deeply in denial about the state of the church and the massive changes that face us.

The history of religion, the history of humanity's relations with Spirit, is an interplay of order and chaos. In our culture we don't like chaos much. We like to fix things, to solve things. But chaos is an essential element of cosmos and creation. Listen to the opening two verses of our Bible: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Listen to quantum physicist Brian Saam: "When you have a [chaotic] system that is characterized by extreme randomness, it paradoxically can produce ordered behavior after a certain amount of time".

Read through the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, and the history of the church and you will find a rhythm: movement into structured, institutional religion; dissolution into dynamic change and uncertainty; and then the signs of an emerging new coalescence.

Solomon's time was a time of coalescence. Our time is one of dissolution. The Spirit is in the chaos right now. It has become a solvent, pouring itself over the temple, dissolving the mortar between the stones, sending the people into tents. This was clear at general council. We learned this from our finances. We learned this from stories of congregations under stress from sea to sea to sea. We learned this from reports of our systems of governance snapping apart at the seams, avoiding tough decisions and generating mistrust. But more importantly, we learned this by noticing that the strongest and wisest voices, the ones that speak best to our time, come from those who are accustomed to living in tents, to living at the margins. For those trapped inside the crumbling temple, this is bad news. For those who long for escape from the temple, who long for an open plane on which to pitch a tent this is good news.

It takes more faith to live in times like ours. It is easier to have faith during times of coalescence, when things are coming together, when the church is confident and celebrated by society. But, if we look back at our history, all of the most important generations in our journeying with the Spirit were ones that saw the faith through chaos, danger, and uncertainty. The generations of Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King, and Martin Luther, and Peter and Mary and, the generations of Ruth, and Moses, and Abraham and Sarah - all of these navigated chaos with trust and hope.

In the midst of all the changes around us, in the very dynamism of those changes, the Spirit is with us. And the Spirit offers us a choice: resist and deny this dynamism and sink under the crumbling temple or embrace this energy and become one of the great generations.